Better Living by Technical Assistance and Mobility in an Aging Society

The project PASSAge (Personalized Mobility, Assistance and Service Systems in an Aging Society), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) aims at the implementation of seamless mobility chains that smoothly connect private and public spaces with a special regard to the needs of an aging society. By extending existing means of mobility with user-oriented components, individual and self-determined mobility for elderly people shall be ensured. Individual physical adaptions for buildings, vehicles, and mobility aids shall facilitate the usage of and changing between means of mobility. For planning trips, navigating, providing contextual mobility-related information, and keeping track of the health status, the so-called ‘HealthPhone’ will be an electronic mobility companion that can provide safety and security for the elderly users. In this paper, we describe how the technical, information architecture and physical components and solutions are planned and evaluated, in order to create innovative solutions meeting the needs of the users, ensuring user acceptance and thereby sustaining a economically feasible solution.